Warriors for the Working Day
by poe1911
Summary: You meet all kinds of "people" in bars; even one-eyed ex carpenters.
1. Warriors for the Working Day

A/N Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies, so I've always wanted to do a cross with BtVS. I would watch the movie and two thoughts would always crop up, one was that the world of BR was perfect for demons and vampires; the second was that it looked like an awful lot of effort to take out a couple of androids that would die soon anyway; so I worked those two ideas into this story. This story is also an exercise in writing and may be a bit confusing at first but I'd like to think that the effort is worth it. As always, criticism is appreciated but pointless rants just make my head hurt; the usual disclaimers apply here so please don't sue me.

POE1911

WARRIORS FOR THE WORKING DAY

You know, despite how my parents were I've never been comfortable sitting in a bar. It's something I've learned to do but when I'm given a choice I'll set up a meeting in a park, a restaurant or a store. I mean, let's face it; meeting someone in a bar is so cliché.

So why am I here, you ask, well I'm here because I'm meeting a couple of potential recruits and not for the Watcher's Council; I haven't worked for them for a while.

Why not, well the short answer is that they went bad; at least they did from my point of view, but then again the whole worlds' gone bad in the last few years so why should the Council be any exception.

You're right, these days the world's in pretty sorry shape, and I blame Deadboy for the whole thing. I know what you're gonna say, and you'd be right; I've blamed the guy for a lot of things that weren't specifically his fault, from Jesse on, but this time I've got reasons and even facts on my side. You see when he basically decided on the whole 'kamikaze' play to take out Wolfram and Hart he didn't stop to think that the Senior Partners would have a plan to deal with just such a situation, a contingency plan. Yeah, they covered their tracks pretty well, but the information was in the building and available if he had bothered to look, but he didn't and now we all suffer so excuse me if I'm not cutting the 'Forehead Avenger' a lot of slack.

After the whole 'Black Thorn' deal the Senior Partners laid low for a while and at the time we really thought we'd beaten them; it was a kind of a Golden Age for a while. Then reality jumped up and took a big wet bite out of our collective asses. The first domino to fall was Giles and Buffy being killed. They were just sitting and talking in a park on the outskirts of London when five guys just opened up with machine guns; they didn't stand a chance but at least they died together. As for the gunmen, well officially they disappeared; unofficially they were alive for about two weeks after they pulled the triggers before they succumbed to their collection of injuries. I once told Dawn what had happened to them, she never really looked at me the same again, but I also could see that she took some comfort in the fact that vengeance had been exacted; so I was OK with it. With Giles gone Robin took over and that's when the Watcher's Council started their downward spiral. Robin and I disagreed on the fundamental focus of the Council, I wanted it to support the slayers and he wanted it to amass power, and make him look good as a side effect. Now I could bore you for hours on all the little things that happened but in a nutshell, the Council went from being proactive back to reactive. At the time I was a fairly popular guy as far as the council went, heck I was even dating Quentin Travers granddaughter, but even that didn't prevent Robin from marginalizing me to the point where the only real influence I had was on the slayers directly under my control. Dawnie and Wills still kept me in the loop and would float my ideas as their own, but Robin made it real clear that associating with me was a hazardous enterprise, especially after Linda Travers was mugged and had her face cut up with a razor knife. I got the message loud and clear and quit and that meant that what little proactive work the Council was doing stopped; and when that happened the Senior Partners made their move. During the early part of Robin's tenure they had quietly put their still significant influence behind two small businesses, Tyrell Bio-Mechanics and Yoyodyne Propulsion systems. Now see, this is what I meant about proactive; Buffy and Giles would have been all over Tyrell in a heartbeat when his first robot came out because it was a near perfect replica of April, Warren Mears girlfriend-bot, but considering how things were, it came out and none of us noticed. Then, after I left, the Senior Partners kicked things into high gear and these two companies 'developed' technologies that were leaps ahead of anything else in their field. Tyrell somehow skipped the whole cyborg thing and went straight to making robots that were entirely biological (because bio-robot really didn't fit, these things were called replicants). As for Yoyodyne; which was basically two Cal-Tech grads working out of a rather dingy warehouse, they came up with an engine that pretty much re-wrote what we knew about physics. Now of the two, Tyrell grew faster and the first company it merged with was Yoyodyne and just like that the Senior Partners had a power base again. They waited a couple of years then made their most brilliant move; they gave the human race exactly what it wanted. With the Tyrell Corporation's acquisitions and advancements, they now could explore the stars and expand out into the solar system and far beyond and do it with a manufactured slave class taking all of the risks.

So mankind took to the stars courtesy of the Tyrell Corporation, or to be precise, courtesy of the former Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart. And where man went, his nightmares followed. It wasn't long before stories filtered back to earth about serial killers in some colonies that had 'facial deformities' and deaths due to 'massive blood loss' and once those got back to Robin, well the slayers went into space. The thing was they weren't used to working alone, so teams of three Slayers and one Watcher were sent out to the colonies in danger. And as more places were colonized, more teams of slayers were sent out until the Council couldn't properly defend the Earth any more, and what's more, they didn't seem to want to defend it any more. You see, by giving mankind what it wanted and by seeding the colonies with vampires; they spread the Council out so much that they couldn't properly respond to threats on Earth, and that was the target the whole time. And as mankind became more and more de-centralized, less and less notice was taken of what was going on here. Other companies, like Tyrell rose up in other places on the earth and started controlling the governments, crime became rampant and the pollution laws were lifted so that pesky sunlight wasn't a problem anymore and those who were smart; left. They were re-making it you see; the demons were re-making the earth into what they wanted it to be, a home for their kind; a home where humans were just moving meals.

Now you may notice that the Earth is not currently being over-run by demons so obviously something or someone is doing the job that the slayers used to do; and that someone is the organization I recruit for. Once the Tyrell Corporation hit the big time, I could see the writing on the wall and went to Riley Finn. He'd moved up in the Army and had a surprising amount of pull and together we hatched a plan to create a force right out in the open, we'd just lie about what the real purpose was. We had to move fast before the Corporations got too much power and fortunately we moved fast enough. Through connections of both Riley's and my own, we got each major government in the world to declare Replicants illegal on Earth and had them create the Blade Runner units. It was really pretty easy, spin a story about superhumans coming back to earth and taking over and all of them were practically falling over themselves to pass the legislation.

Now I know you're sitting there thinking "but they're busy dealing with renegade Replicants" but that's crap. I mean think about it logically, Replicants are a little bit stronger and faster, that's true; but they aren't any smarter than a human. And even if one or more could hi-jack a shuttle, which isn't a given when you consider the security on those things, and make it back to Earth, just how much trouble could they really cause. You see, one thing you're forgetting is the four year life-span; if they go through everything it takes to make it back they only have a fraction of that left, so more often than not the renegade 'retires' itself without us doing a damn thing. Sure it's embarrassing when that happens and there's always a small jump in the death rate but how much real damage could one, or even a group, do to a city. Sure you get an occurrence now and again, but for the most part the Blade Runner units are concerned with keeping the demon population under control. So those tests we run are mainly for show because we can ID demons pretty quickly from just their pheromone signatures or body temperatures. And when we have to 'retire' something publicly, then we just say it was a new, experimental Replicant that broke loose. You'd be surprised at how well that one works and after all we're Blade Runners, the elite; who's gonna have the stones to even question us.

So the myth is that Blade Runners deal with the almost non-existent Replicant threat while the reality is that we're dealing with the completely unacknowledged Demonic threat. Hey, looks like my potential recruits are here, I've gotta go talk to them then I need to talk to a friend.

Robin, hell no I'm not talking to Robin; and even if I was it would be a rather one sided conversation.

Cause he's dead, that's why.

Well, I waited til I knew Faith wouldn't be around then I went to see him, you know; a 'bury the hatchet' kind of thing. I said I thought he was acting strangely and put him on the machine. He came up as 'non-human' and I retired him right there and let me tell you, that one felt good.

Of course the machine was rigged.

Why, because he hired the guys that killed Buffy and Giles and had my girlfriends face cut up. Remember, that's the first rule of being a detective, your prime suspect is the one that stood to gain the most, and that was Robin, plus the gunmen ID'd him when I 'questioned' them. After he was gone the Council left Earth so we've been on our own for a while, but the activation spell is still working and Slayers are still cropping up here and there. Linda finds em and gives em the basics and that kind of thing; we've been quietly building up their numbers, trying to keep under the bad guy's radar.

How do I know what she's doing, well she is my wife after all; so we do talk.

Leave her, nah; I married her less than a year after the attack.

Anyway they're getting a lot more training now and we're slowly working them back into the fight.

How, as Blade Runner recruits of course.

Yeah, I know these two are guys, but we can't have all the Blade Runners be female now can we, it would be suspicious.

How do I know it's safe to tell you all this, that's easy. Hey, Holden, Deckard; come over here and meet this Skin Job I'm about to retire.

The End


	2. Conversations

A/N I thought that the story was done, but a question by a reviewer prompted this little scene. Apply the usual disclaimers here

CONVERSATIONS WITH PEOPLE THAT WISH YOU WERE DEAD

'I can't believe I let my guard down this badly' Xander thought as he noticed that the wall was approaching at an extreme rate of speed. He closed his eye just prior to impact; it hurt but the fact that he'd been pummeled on an almost daily basis for the last 15 years meant that the effect wasn't as devastating as it might have been. He opened his eye once he hit the floor but due to the dust and the damage all he could see was a pair of boots headed his way. Actually it didn't matter that all he could see was boots, he knew who was kicking the snot out of him. He'd been expecting this for over a year and hoped that it was just bad luck that they would show up after the craptastic day he'd had. He felt the hands of his assailant grab him by the shirt and throat then he was pulled into a vertical position with his feet at least six inches off the floor.

"Didn't think I'd forget did ya boytoy?"

Xander tried to answer, but the hand at his throat was too tight and all he could do was gurgle.

"Sorry" she said with a smirk "but we wouldn't want to disturb the neighbors with all that screaming now would we."

Xander glared down into Faith's intense brown eyes "sorry" he managed to rasp out.

"For what" Faith began but before she could continue her whole body seized up and she collapsed, releasing Xander.

"That" he said as he stood and put the overcharged stun gun back into his pocket. "Now I know you can't move and that's gonna last for a while, the gun's made for working on demons so it'll keep a slayer down for about fifteen minutes. You can't talk right now, but give it a minute or two and that should be back to normal" he said as he picked her up and deposited her into an overstuffed chair. "Now you may have noticed that I'm not killing you and that's the way I'd like to keep things so if you keep your homicidal inclinations in check I'll tell you everything you wanted to know about what happened to Robin; but if you decide to attack" Xander added, pulling out a large and lethal looking hand-gun "well I won't hesitate to retire you". His eyes grew wide for a second and then he went over to the bed and pulled a small case out from under it while muttering "I can't believe I almost forgot".

Faith was trying to get something, anything to move but her body just wasn't under her control at the moment. She looked up to see Xander headed back towards her with a hypodermic in his hand. Her eyes went wide and she tried to shake her head, or move her arm or resist in some way but the needle slipped easily into her arm and Xander pushed the plunger home. He looked up and saw the question in her eyes.

"Basically you'll be a normal human for about twenty four hours which gives me plenty of time to get away if I need to; it's a variation of the Cruciamentum drugs."

"Bastard" she managed to rasp out; she tried to resist as he secured her to the chair she was in, but her body was still refusing to cooperate.

"I can be" he replied evenly "when it's necessary, you should have remembered that." Then he gave Faith a speculative look "out of curiosity, who told you where to find me?"

Faith debated for a second, then simply told the truth "Angel".

"Deadboy still keeping tabs on me; can't say I'm surprised. Did he know you were coming here to kill me?"

"He knew I wasn't coming to thank you."

"Wow, that humanity thing is still a work in progress; I was kinda hoping he'd be a little further along by now. So is he still living in the desert outside of Kingman Arizona with that werewolf chic?"

Faith's eyes widened in surprise even as she nodded her head "you know where he lives?"

"Of course, it is kinda my job after all; you know, just in case he finally falls completely in love with her and Angelus comes out to play again. What, did he really think he was safely hidden away?"

"Yeah"

"Huh, well in that case I'll be sure and drop by and thank him personally for your visit."

"That's assuming you live past this night."

"Yeah, that's true."

"Not smart."

"I dunno Faith; I'd say it's a pretty safe bet. I mean even if you get out of that chair and decide to attack me, right now I'm stronger than you and probably faster as well, not to mention I'm armed and you're not. But all that aside, I know your impulsive but you do think things through when you're given a chance so I'm betting that once I'm done talking you won't be so hep on killing me."

"That would take some pretty fast talking."

"Well, you know me; talking is one of the things I do best."

"I remember you talking yourself into more shit than you talked yourself out of" she paused "how about I give it a try and you tell me what I get wrong?"

"Fair enough."

"See, the way I figure it, Robbie was just you following your pattern."

"What pattern?"

"Well B ditches your lame ass for Angel, so you arrange for him to go to hell; Robbie gets the nod in front of you from the Council so you arrange for him to be 'retired' or maybe you got pissed cause I picked him over you, either way it's your pattern. You get jealous and take out whoever got what you wanted even if you can't have it."

Xander looked at her for a moment, an incredulous look on his face, then he just started laughing. Not a hysterical or forced laugh, but a deep kind of laugh that comes from the soul. Finally he wound down "man that's good" he wheezed then looked Faith in the eyes, "if you really believe that then you're a lot dumber than I thought because if you're right then I would have killed off Oz, Kennedy and Tara for daring to date Willow."

"Maybe, but so far I haven't you saying anything that makes me think I'm wrong."

Xander looked at her for a second then sighed and sat down "basically I killed Robin and sent Angel to hell for the same reasons, but it wasn't jealousy. Sure, I was jealous of Angel, he got Buffy and I was jealous of Robin for getting the top Council spot but that wasn't the reason I did what I did."

"Yeah, then what was it?"

"You ever talk to anyone about what was going on in the Dale right around when you got called?"

"B mentioned a few things when I first showed up and Fang would go on about that stuff sometimes when he visited."

"Did he ever talk about grabbing Giles right before the whole Acathla thing went down?"

"Nah, never mentioned it, neither did B."

"Figures" Xander said with some bitterness in his voice "well then; let me fill you in. We were all in the Library when Angelus sent us a message. Buffy went all Buffy on us and did a Lone Ranger. While she was gone Dru and a bunch of lackeys hit us. Kendra was killed, Cordy ran, Giles was taken, my arm was broken and Willow was in a coma. Later, when I knew Willow was gonna try and re-soul the bastard; I didn't tell Buffy and she sent him to hell. The point is I didn't do it because of jealousy, I did it because he was responsible for all the pain we'd gone through; Willow in a coma, Giles tortured, Kendra and Ms. Calendar dead; so I figured he should pay for all the pain he caused us. And to tell you the truth it gave me one hell of a happy when I found out that he rotted in a hell dimension for over 100 years."

"Fascinating: really, thanks for the history lesson X, but what does that have to do with Robin?"

"You see Faith, I arranged for Angel to go to hell because he hurt the people I cared about; I killed Robin for the same reason."

"What the hell are you talkin about?"

"He wanted to be the Head Watcher but Giles was still in great health so he helped the matter along by arranging the hit that killed Buffy and Giles, he punished me by arranging the attack that carved up Linda Travers' face and he was working on a scheme to kill off Wills and Dawnie in one shot. He hurt the people I care about so he paid the price."

"That's bullshit" Faith fired back "there's no way he had anything to do with B getting shot."

"He could and he did" Xander replied, unfazed by Faith's anger "I tracked down the trigger men and 'interrogated' them for a couple of weeks. They gave up the contractor and when I 'talked' to him, he gave up Robin."

"Yeah, I'm sure he told you the truth" Faith commented, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Yeah, at first I thought he was full of it too, but the guy taped every meeting he had with anyone that was looking to hire him, kind of an insurance policy, and when I watched em, there was Robin going on about when he wanted it done, precautions the shooters would have to take, everything. Even then I hoped it was faked, or someone that was trying to impersonate Robin, but when I checked the bank records, the withdraws on his account match the payments made to the hitters exactly."

"Assuming for a second that I believe you, why didn't you cap him right then?"

"Because it took me a while to put all the pieces together; I retired him two weeks after I knew for sure that he was guilty. I didn't find out about the other stuff he'd done and tried till after he was dead."

Faith was shaking her head in denial, her eyes battered and devastated at the possibility of Xander telling the truth. He knew she needed more proof, but he also knew the price that would come with that proof. Silently he turned her chair until it faced the television, he turned and retrieved a tape from the same case that the hypodermic was in and put the tape in a VCR, stood back and watched as Faith's world imploded.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Xander could feel some parts of him cramping up, and others that were numb to the touch but he wasn't about to move. He was holding Faith as the slayer cried in his arms. He had never seen her cry before, like himself; she was very private with her emotions, at least the true ones. One thing he had recognized was the look in her eyes right before she broke down, the look of stunned betrayal and loss. Xander had worn that one a few times himself and considering her past he was pretty sure that it was no stranger to Faith as well. So now he held her as the grief and pain poured out; the one thing he was thankful for was that he had remembered to give Faith the shot, otherwise she would have hugged him into a Xander shaped pretzel during to her emotional outburst.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you" she finally managed to blurt out in between sobs.

"That's OK" he replied "I had trouble believing it at first, I can only imagine how you're feeling right now."

"Bullshit Boytoy, you know exactly how I'm feeling cause you've been where I am a time or two."

Xander blushed a little and marveled at her insight "true enough" he allowed and said no more. Faith's breathing was becoming shallow and regular, and considering the emotional blows that she had endured that day Xander was not surprised to see her eyes closed. He sat there and waited until he was sure that she was sound asleep before he gently moved out from under Faith and tucked her into bed. Then, moving as quietly as possible, he made his way out into the apartment's living room, laid down on the couch and closed his eyes; sleep didn't come easily.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

As is usual with a slayer, Faith went from asleep to wide awake in an instant. Her eyes took in her surroundings as she tried to remember where she was. Faith tensed as she heard movement, but the smell of coffee and the smell of Xander told her all she needed to know about where she was, unfortunately it didn't tell her what to do about the situation she was in. She had come to kill him but had ended up breaking down in his arms. Inadvertently she reddened a bit, she had never broken down like that in front of anyone, ever; and to have done it in front of a man who was a possible enemy just added a bit of insult to the mix. 'The hell with this' Faith thought angrily and got out of bed and headed for the smell of coffee; she paused as she saw Xander sitting at a small table with a mug in front of him, he was reading the paper. She saw his eye flick towards her, then go back to the paper.

"Mornin Faith; coffee's over there" he indicated the direction with a bob of his head "cream and sugar are right there if you want em"; he went back to reading his paper.

Faith was puzzled by Xander's seeming indifference to the events of yesterday, but she went along with the appearance of normality for the moment and fixed herself a cup, just a splash of cream, and sat down across from him. There were about two minutes where the only sounds in the apartment were the sipping of coffee and the rustling of the paper. Finally Xander sighed and got the conversation going again.

"I know you know what I do, but I need to ask you a few things and to do that I need to know everything you know about Blade Runners, like where we came from and what we're supposed to do."

Faith was surprised at this line of questioning, she had figured he'd want to talk about her meltdown last night and had been preparing her defenses accordingly, now she switched gears and started "well, I know you all started up about four years ago and you're supposed to cap off those fake humans. I don't know how the whole thing got started or how you got involved." There was silence for a moment as she watched Xander collect his thoughts.

"Well then, its high time you heard the whole story" and with that he launched into the story of the Senior Partners, Tyrell, Riley and their plans and real purpose; it was a lot for her to take in especially since her world view had been so roughed up yesterday. After Xander finished, Faith sat there and tried to assimilate everything in her head finally she looked up "so let me get this straight, you saw this shit commin and got together with Captain Cardboard and started your own Demon hunting outfit right in plain sight."

"Yep"

"The Council know about what you really do?"

"A couple of the higher ups, Dawnie and Wills, but that's it."

"So there's a bunch of humans out there doing the Slayer's job; cause they went bye-bye, and if anyone sees you take some demon down you just tell em that its some kind of fucked up skin job."

"Yeah, that about covers it."

"Huh" she said after a moment or two "so what did ya need to ask me."

"Before we get to that, I need you to swear to me that what I'm about to talk about stays between us, unless I tell you otherwise; cause if you talk then a lot of people could get hurt and then I'd come and find you."

Faith saw the coldness in Xander's eye when he said this and she knew he would back up his threat no matter what. Back in the day she'd heard of things he'd done when people he'd trusted had crossed him and just the stories had given her nightmares; so she knew that if she swore, she'd have to back it up. "Yeah, my word on it".

He held her gaze for a moment more then nodded "well to start with, you're not the only slayer still on the planet"; and despite her stunned expression he started telling her about how he and a few remaining council members were finding and recruiting new slayers as they were called and keeping them secret, for now."

"So what's your long term plan?"

"Well, when they get old enough and trained enough we're gonna start seeding them into Blade Runner units all over the world. That way we should be able to get a foot up on the demonic threat everywhere and maybe start to push back."

"Sounds good, so what do ya need from me?"

"Huh"

"Well ya said ya wanted to ask me somethin, and I figure ya need me to do somethin with all this Slayer/Blade Runner stuff."

"You're right, I do need to ask you something, but I want you to understand that this is me asking you a favor; not some kind of 'you owe me' situation. If you hear me out then decide to walk out that door, that's cool and I won't think any less of you; but the truth is I could really use your help. Ya see, I've got two problems; the first is training. We've got all these baby slayers and we really need a pro to train em up, but they're all off planet now except for you. The second thing is I need someone to back up the Blade Runners here in LA. Unfortunately one person can't do both but anything you could do would be appreciated."

"Why do ya need me as backup here, what's so different about LA?"

"LA is the home base of the Senior Partners so here's where they're the strongest; if any one from the old days started working here, well they'd know about it and you'd probably be dead pretty soon after that. Unfortunately here you've got to be covert. Then to top it off, the asshole that runs the unit here in LA is one of their plants, so if the regular Blade Runner's get too good they meet with an untimely accident. The death-rate for the LA unit is three times what it is for any other unit."

"Couldn't ya just off the fucker?"

"I wish it were that simple, but he's got the unit stacked with his flunkies so even if he were gone, well it would still be business as usual, plus it would tip off the Senior Partners that someone was on to their game and dealing with em would get twice as hard."

Faith thought about what Xander had told her, finally she came to a decision "I think I can help you with both your problems."

Xander brightened "how could you do that?"

"I figured I would go be the den mother to all these newbies but on my way I'd recruit Fang to help cover LA. He dealt with the Senior Partners for years and knows how they operate; plus you know how stealthy he can be."

Xander leaned back, more than a little surprised at Faith's suggestion but he could understand it, she would want to give others what she never had and at the same time she would pull Angel back into the fight, believing that the vampire was good underneath it all. He nodded "deal, but any info on the baby Slayers stays with you and you only. I get that you trust Angel and think he's a good guy, but I don't trust him the way that you do, so no info to Deadboy on the SIT's and we're cool." He sat back smiling "actually having him in LA makes sense; he started this whole mess, he might as well be here to help clean it up."

Faith looked at him sharply "what is it with you and Fang anyway, and don't say jealousy cause I know that's bullshit; or at least not the whole story."

Xander looked in Faith's direction but she could see that his thoughts were a million miles away, the moment stretched out but finally he gave a little jerk and answered her. "Yeah, there was jealousy at first, but what really kicked it for me was how he was helping out; I mean he pops out of the shadows and gives Buffy a cryptic warning, he wanted the benefits of doing good but he wasn't willing to put himself on the line to do it. Then, when Buffy had to face the master, everyone said she was gonna die but I figured there was some way to help so I went to find him. The bastard was sitting in his room reading a book; now I don't know about you but if the person I loved was facing a life or death challenge then I'd be right there by their side, not sitting around doing nothing cause some damned prophecy said that there's no hope. That's when I really got my mad on for Angel, he said he loved her, but he wasn't willing to risk everything for her; and that's his pattern. He's never been willing to put everything on the line, or at least I've never seen or heard of him doing it. I mean the whole Black Thorne thing that happened down here, everyone dies but him, color me stunned."

Faith started to reply but held her comments back, she had asked Xander for his reasons and he'd given them; she might not agree with him but now at least she knew where he was coming from.

"So, when you taking off?"

"Anxious to get rid of me there, stud?"

"Nah, just wanted to tell people you'd be coming so you don't get shot on sight."

The casual way he said this told Faith all she needed to know about how serious he was taking security. "I figured I'd head over to Arizona this afternoon, talk to Fang and catch a flight from there."

"Sounds good, when you call I'll let you know where you're going."

"Cool, so" she asked, looking around "where's the shower in this place?"

The End


	3. Demons

A/N The story really is complete now, I realized that I needed to show the meeting and it's aftermath from Deckard's point of view. So here it is.

DEMONS

Demons, the kid said we'd be really hunting demons because replicants weren't that big a threat. What the hell was going on, the guy was supposed to be some sort of big-wig in the Blade Runners and here he was talking about demons. I looked over at Holden; you could tell he thought the kid was out of his mind, I thought the same thing. The kid had noticed our looks, he'd have to be blind and stupid not to, but he didn't look angry or defensive; no, he looked bored, like he'd seen this thousands of times before; hell, maybe he had. Then he quietly got up and motioned for us to follow, I just looked at Holden and he just looked back at me. I sat there for a second and then thought 'Oh what the hell' and followed him into the alley with Holden along for the ride; I wish to hell I hadn't. When our eyes finally adjusted to the change in light there was a girl chained up in the alley, and the chains were pretty damn heavy. I stood there thinking that the kid must have set this up before hand and I wondered for the umpteenth time what I'd gotten myself into. Then the specifics started to bug me, why had he chained up a young girl, how had he done that without anyone noticing or the girl screaming her head off; something didn't add up. Holden went to let her go when the kid said, "don't". There was more command in that one word than I've ever heard before, you couldn't have disobeyed that tone if your life depended on it. Holden froze and the kid just walked up to the girl, a smirk on his face. You could see she was scared, her muscles were straining against the chains but they were way too heavy for a little thing like her, I was wondering why the kid had used such massive chains on such a little thing. He stopped about a foot and a half to her left, you could see that she hated him, that she just wanted enough give in the chains to grab him, but there was no give and she was trussed up tight; whatever else he was, the kid was a pro.

"If you accept the job, this is most of what you'll be dealing with" he said, facing the two of us; turning to her he muttered, "show em the real you."

The girl just shook her head and snarled at the kid, nearly frothing at the mouth in her anger, I didn't much blame her. Then the kid moved, faster than I'd ever seen anyone move before; he whipped out a simple wooden cross and laid it on her cheek. When he did this she threw her head back and screamed; it was a raw, primal sound that cut right through me and sapped all the emotions out of me and replaced them with pure fear. The kid pulled the cross away and both Holden and me could see that it had left a mark on her face, like a burn. But that bit of data was overshadowed when her face changed; her eyes turned yellow and bumps and ridges sprang up on her head and finally her teeth grew into fangs. The scream ended and she hung there in her chains, glaring at us inhumanly, a sheen of sweat on her face. Idly I noticed that the bolts she was chained to had bent a little; I was gonna say something but the kid saw it too, for having only one eye the bastard didn't miss a damned thing.

"This is a vampire; they're fairly common thanks to the perpetual dark that our cities now exist in. The ways to detect a vampire are pretty obvious, not pulse, no blood pressure, no reflection," he pointed to the girl's cheek. "They react poorly to holy symbols and they're pretty stupid so tripping them up isn't hard. Now killing them on the other hand is a bit more involved since they're 4 times faster and stronger than you are. You don't want to go toe to toe with the damned things cause you'll just end up dead or worse; I don't care if you're facing off against something that looks like a ninety year old lady with blue hair and a walker, you treat em like a grizzly bear with a toothache. That means you stand back and kill em from a distance, none of the hand to hand shit they teach now a days, that's just a quick way to die. Now the traditional methods do work, stake to the heart, decapitation, holy water and holy symbols burn em but all that depends on being close and that's what we're trying to avoid. That's why we developed these," he said as he pulled a cross sectioned bullet out of his pocket. It looked like a normal jacketed slug, but you could see that the layer under the jacket was different; it sure wasn't some kind of metal. "You've got the outer layer of lead, followed by ironwood and finally a core of cold iron, good for darned near everything that goes bump in the night. This is the standard Blade Runner issue but if you want to go with incendiaries, well those work too." He looked from Holden to me, checking to see how all of this was sinking in. I didn't know how Holden was taking everything but I felt like someone had doped me up without my knowing it, everything had a surreal edge to it but I just couldn't seem to find the path back to what was real. Apparently that was kind of what the kid was expecting to see because he went on.

"Now vampires are both the easiest and the toughest things you'll deal with; ya see, they look like humans so detecting em from a distance isn't easy, but they are relatively easy to kill and you don't have to worry about a body."

Again the kid moved; his right arm a blur as he sank a wooden stake into the girl's chest. Her eyes got wide for a second, then she burst into dust. I just stood there, staring as what used to be a human being drifted to the ground. On top of everything else that I'd just seen it was too much, my mind was refusing to process any more. What made the whole thing worse was that the kid could see this too, he knew that Holden and me were at the end of our ropes right then; I'm willing to bet the bastard set it up that way.

"Now you've got the basics of the job, so if you want in, just give me a call," and he gave us both a card with only his name and a phone number on it. "If I don't hear from you in two days then I'll start looking for someone else and the offer is off the table."

With that he just turned and walked down the alley, whistling, as though he didn't have a care in the world. I looked at Holden and he looked at me and we just stood there for a minute or two as what used to be a young girl washed away in the rain, I wanted to say something and it was clear that Holden did too, but the words just weren't there. I guess it was the same for Holden cause he didn't say a word either; my world had been tilted out of whack and I wasn't sure what to do. Well, when in doubt, return to what is familiar; so I went back in the bar, sat down and ordered a whiskey. Holden waited for another minute or two and then joined me at the bar. We'd glance at each other occasionally but we didn't talk; hell, we didn't have to. Everything that could be said had been said in the alley. I could see him trying to form a question once in a while, but he'd just shake his head and go back to his drink. After about forty five minutes I got up and left; as much as I wished otherwise, the whiskey wasn't helping. Holden barely acknowledged me as I got up and left, maybe the whiskey was helping him, I hoped it was.

As I walked through the streets my mind kept going back to the alley and the way the girl's face changed; and new questions kept popping into my head: what was really out here in the dark, was it after me, what else was there that I didn't know about. In one meeting that bastard had changed the way I looked at the world, and now that I'd had a glimpse of the truth, I couldn't go back. And I'd be willing to bet the son of a bitch knew that when he set up the meeting. He'd trapped us, he'd trapped us with knowledge and now we lived in his world not ours. I finally made it home, my wife was still awake, watching a movie or something; she could see that something had happened.

"What is it Rick, did it go bad?"

I just stood there looking at her and remembering everything that had happened to me that night; what could I tell her that wouldn't hurt her. Slowly I closed my eyes, then walked into the bathroom; her question still hanging in the air.


End file.
